1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sole embodied as a throughsole, inner sole or insole for a shoe with a flexible outsole and relates to a shoe with such a sole.
2. Description of Related Art
In providing shoes with a flexible outsole, it is known for the outsole to bend in the shape of an arch of a bridge or an archway under certain loading conditions. This happens, for example, when playing football when shooting on the volley. In this instance, the ball is struck in such a way that, with shoes with a soft flexible outsole, the front part of the foot together with the front part of the shoe is bent downwards due to the yielding nature of the outsole. Thus, in the shooting process, the sole is bent downwards at the front end so that the force cannot be transmitted completely to the ball when shooting.
A shoe which is stiffened against the bending discussed above is shown in the German patent 196 01 219 C1. The stiffening is achieved by providing a front tension band connecting the front end of the sole to the upper and two rear lateral tension bands connecting the heel area of the sole to the upper. The front tension band and the two rear tension bands are connected to one another in the instep area. In addition, the connecting node of the three bands can be fixed by a further tension band running transversely from one side of the shoe to the other. This prevents the front part of the shoe from bending downwards, but does not stop the sole rolling. The force occurring when under loading in the bending direction is borne by the instep.
This is an undesirable situation and results painful loading of the instep area as several tendons run in this area. In addition, this design does not prevent a soft flexible shoe sole from bending upwards in the area of the arch of the foot and subjecting the foot to extremely painful loading when impinging on hard and/or frozen objects.
The object of the invention is to prevent the undesired bending or flexing of the shoe and the loading on the foot in the area of the instep and the arch of the foot.
This object is achieved through the use of resiliently elastic material along with raised side areas and tension element or elements attached to them in their upper edge area to ensure that all the above discussed types of loading are borne by the sole of the invention as a throughsole, inner sole or insole so that painful loading force is no longer transmitted to the foot.